The prevention of players from playing is the NFL’s ultimate leverage. The players’ ultimate leverage is decertification, which they enacted earlier. The antitrust lawsuit filed by nine players Friday evening aims at preventing a lockout.

It’s possible, perhaps even likely, that the league’s lockout effort will be blocked by the courts. That’s when appeals will be filed.

After the disappointing conclusion to Friday's labor talks, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell wrote a letter to fans. Here it is (via NFL.com, of course):

Dear NFL Fan,

When I wrote to you last on behalf of the NFL, we promised you that we would work tirelessly to find a collectively bargained solution to our differences with the players' union. Subsequent to that letter to you, we agreed that the fastest way to a fair agreement was for everyone to work together through a mediation process. For the last three weeks I have personally attended every session of mediation, which is a process our clubs sincerely believe in.

Unfortunately, I have to tell you that earlier today the players' union walked away from mediation and collective bargaining and has initiated litigation against the clubs. In an effort to get a fair agreement now, our clubs offered a deal today that, among other things, was designed to have no adverse financial impact on veteran players in the early years, and would have met the players' financial demands in the latter years of the agreement.

The proposal we made included an offer to narrow the player compensation gap that existed in the negotiations by splitting the difference; guarantee a reallocation of savings from first-round rookies to veterans and retirees without negatively affecting compensation for rounds 2-7; no compensation reduction for veterans; implement new year-round health and safety rules; retain the current 16-4 season format for at least two years with any subsequent changes subject to the approval of the league and union; and establish a new legacy fund for retired players (US $82 million contributed by the owners over the next two years).

It was a deal that offered compromise, and would have ensured the well-being of our players and guaranteed the long-term future for the fans of the great game we all love so much. It was a deal where everyone would prosper.

We remain committed to collective bargaining and the federal mediation process until an agreement is reached, and call on the union to return to negotiations immediately. NFL players, clubs, and fans want an agreement. The only place it can be reached is at the bargaining table.

While we are disappointed with the union's actions, we remain steadfastly committed to reaching an agreement that serves the best interest of NFL players, clubs and fans, and thank you for your continued support of our league. First and foremost it is your passion for the game that drives us all, and we will not lose sight of this as we continue to work for a deal that works for everyone.

“By now you are aware that members of the National Football League Players Association renounced the NFLPA’s status as the collective bargaining agent for NFL Players. Going forward, the NFLPA will instead be operating as a professional association committed to promoting, protecting and enhancing the careers of professional football players – past, present and future.

“By becoming a professional association, the NFLPA has changed its relationship with agents who represent NFL players. Since the NFLPA no longer is the collective bargaining representative of NFL players for wages, hours and working conditions, it is no longer a requirement that Contract Advisors be certified by the NFLPA in order to represent players in individual contract negotiations with NFL clubs. In other words, the NFLPA is discontinuing its agent regulation system.”

The players allege that the NFL conspired to deny the players' ability to market their services. This has been the players' silver bullet all along. After the American Needle vs. NFL case in May determined that the NFL consists of 32 separate entities, the league became vulnerable to antitrust laws. Separate entities cannot bind together to prevent players from working.

Expect the league to file a counter suit claiming that the NFLPA’s decertification is a sham. Per the terms of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, the NFLPA could only sue the league after decertifying.

Something to keep in mind amidst all the tense labor negotiations between “millionaires” and “billionaires” is that these millionaires didn’t become millionaires by being flexible and willing to settle for less, and these billionaires for darn sure didn’t become billionaires by doing that.

Throughout their entire lives, these players and owners have grown accustom to not just winning, but winning with authority. We’re talking about alpha male athletes vs. alpha male businessmen, with a few alpha male lawyers sprinkled in.

Yet people remain surprised that these two sides continue to bicker. How is it these rich guys can even risk letting their greed kill the golden goose? Because it’s their innate “greed” that created the golden goose in the first place. What most people see as greed, the individuals see as justice.

The biggest myth from all the CBA talk is that fans aren’t interested in this fight between millionaires and billionaires. Hogwash. Fans ARE interested. Fans might prefer to have games played, but at this point in March, the drama of labor strife has made for great entertainment.

During combine week in Indy, Peter King and a handful of other NFL writers hosted what amounted to a town hall meeting where fans could ask any football question to the room. For the first 50 minutes, every question was about labor issues. Every question. It helped the NFLPA spokesman George Atallah and NFLPA executive committee members Chester Pitts and Fabian Washington were in the room. But even after they left, the interest in the subject remained palpable. Several times the conversation was jerked to football, only to naturally drift back to labor.

The NFL is as much a reality TV show as it is a professional sports league. Labor unrest is scary to think about from a long-term perspective, but the deadlines, rhetoric and doomsday threats make it compelling entertainment in the short-term.

If you don’t believe it, you weren’t following the events live as Friday’s 5 p.m. EST approached.

Well, either that or the players do truly believe that decertification, and the resulting antitrust case that will result -- gives them the greatest opportunity to land the best deal out of the labor negotiations.

They may be right. Or they may be crazy. And there might even still be time left before it actually matters -- as more and more reports of the decertification plan leak out, there's also a very guarded sense of optimism that things could still change between now (3:00-ish EST) and the deadline for decertification.

New developments on the labor front? You betcha. (In this case, it's the union saying 18 games is out of question and then filing a motion to unlock the TV case records from Judge Doty's courtroom.)

So that means a new podcast, too. Mike Freeman, CBSSports.com national columnist, is on the horn this time to talk about whether or not there's reason for optimism in the labor talks, why the owners are refusing to open up the books, what a ruling in this television case could mean, and what to expect from the labor negotiations over the next two days.

One of the smartest guys in this entire labor battle between the NFL and players is Arizona kicker Jay Feely. Few people on either side are capable of succinctly breaking down the issues with clarity as Feely.

He's a member of the union's executive committee and while there is little Feely can say about the negotiations now because of the sensitivity of the talks he did take time to explain in detail why the recent Judge David Doty ruling regarding the league's network TV deals -- which amounted to a $4 billion lockout slush fund for the owners -- was so critical.

Feely had just arrived in Washington on Tuesday morning when he spoke with CBSSports.com.

"With that lockout fund the owners basically had $4 billion in the bank and we had zero," said Feely. "They had such a massive financial advantage over us. The Doty ruling gave us a chance.

"I've told people that basically it was like the real estate market. One person trying to buy a house has a lot of cash on hand and someone else doesn't. The other part of the ruling was the language Doty used. He stated the actions of the owners was egregious and an attempt to defraud the players.

"I think the next big thing is what the penalty will be. Doty hasn't decided yet."

That is critical and hasn't been talked about enough in the media. Doty could put that $4 billion pool in an escrow account for an entire year, give the players 59.6 percent of it or hold it until a deal is done. None of those options are good for certain owners like Danny Snyder who have gigantic stadium mortgage payments.

"I get what the NFL was trying to do from a business perspective," Feely said. "But it was still wrong and Doty's ruling showed it was wrong. Now we just want to get a deal done. Hopefully that can happen."